


Baby, It's Cold Outside

by TGBMcCray



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Christmas, Christmas Special, F/M, Falling In Love, Grief, Healing, Love comes unexpectedly, mention of major character deaths, will they or won't they
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-14
Updated: 2020-12-14
Packaged: 2021-03-10 18:35:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,530
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28071801
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TGBMcCray/pseuds/TGBMcCray
Summary: Rey Kenobi makes her way to her grandparents' home in Surrey to finally begin putting her grief to rest. A chance leads her to a box of old photographs and possibly the man for which she never knew she was waiting. They share a long forgotten past and a deep and abiding pain. Will they make their way together?
Relationships: Poe Dameron/Finn, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 8
Kudos: 33
Collections: Reylo Readers & Writers - The Marvellous Moodboard Event





	Baby, It's Cold Outside

**Author's Note:**

> This is part of the #reylomarvellousmoodies collection. This story is SFW and is inspired by the awesome mood board made by @plasmamullet.

[Moodboard for this fic created by @PlasmaMullet ](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1wbR1sFl3rUhyhIevMvSgpBco7Se5Xyt2/view)

On the path to her grands’ cottage, Rey Kenobi stopped to take a deep breath. The cold of the December wind seemed to blow directly through her heart, swirling into the empty space left by Ben and Satine Kenobi more than a year before.

Grief is deceit. It makes liars of saints, telling the bereaved they are better, beyond it, healed. The whispers of “It’s fine, you’re fine, it’s been a long time, I’m getting through it,” are repeated until we start to agree, until we say it ourselves, and believe it to be true.

The lie creeps out on gnarled and ghostly fingers. For some it’s a scent. A piece of music. An old watch. For Rey, like so many others, grief had waited quietly to steal back into her heart in December when the holidays had brought dreams and memories that would not be ignored. She shook her head, scrubbing at the wisps of cinnamon-streaked hair flickering into her face. The new lock on the door required a code, which she entered with gloved fingers. Her boots left small, wet marks on the hardwood floors as she paced first to the kitchen, standing in the doorway and watching the morning light spill into the deep farmhouse sink.

In the living room, dust covered the bookshelves, the props carried away from stages and film sets, even the first hat she had made for Gran, displayed with such love on a silver pedestal near the flat screen–still a focal point but away from the damaging light of the cottage windows. With shaking hands, Rey removed her gloves, her coat, and last, carefully and slowly, she withdrew the pins that held her hat, a dark grey felt with a thin red ribbon and a black and white woodpecker’s feather, made by her own hand especially for the funeral service last November.

Laying the hat gently on the old sofa, she sat down beside it, watching dust motes rise in the air above the fireplace, which was flanked by framed and signed play bills and movie scripts. It was some time before she realized that she was crying.

**

When Finn called in the afternoon, her hands were full of soap and the floors smelled of polish and sunshine, though the temperature hadn’t warmed much. There was no wood on hand and the old radiators clunked so loudly when she switched them on that she had promptly turned them back off.

She dried her hands on a dish rag, holding her phone in the crook of her neck. “What? No, I am not stewing. I’m cleaning.”

“Even better,” Finn’s deep laugh always made her smile involuntarily. “You can come back down here and do my flat next, you know. Poe is such an awful slob.”

Rey rolled her eyes so hard she swore she could see the back of her own head. “Right, mate. And you’re a regular Martha Stewart yourself. Is there something you wanted?”

“Hey!” She could imagine Finn’s wide smile through the rather cracked connection, his white teeth pulling at his bottom lip. “I resemble that remark. But yes, actually. I did have a reason. I know I said I wouldn’t bother you about the shop–”

“And I’ve been gone exactly two days and you’re already ringing me up–”

“Yes, I know. But look. Lady Keldrick came by this morning. Apparently there’s some last-minute charity gala, and well, you know.”

Rey’s sigh seemed to fill the stillness of the room around her. The suds on the butcher block countertops began to pop, dissolving into nothingness. “And she can’t have just anyone, she has to have me make her hat for it.”

“Right.”

Her fingers, bird light and freckled at the wrists, squeezed the sponge in her hand hard.

“Fine. Send me the files of what she’s wearing, including her coat and shoes.”

“Won’t you need me to have materials delivered out there too?”

“Maybe. I’ll check Gran’s workroom first, and then I’ll let you know what I need.”

“Brilliant. You’re the best, boss.”

Rey clicked her tongue, grimacing. “No, I’m not. I’m a schmuck. And she knows it.”

Finn laughed again. “At least she’s a rich pain-in-the-ass, darling. Chin up.”

“I know. I know.”

Rey slid her fingertip across the phone and got back to attacking the counters.

**

It was Gran and Gramps’ fault that she’d become a milliner. Veterans of stage and film, they had designed, sewn, and imagined their way through more productions than anyone could rightly remember. They had their own Wikipedia page for Kenobi Constructs, though Rey wasn’t sure who created it or why. Whenever she had wanted to feel closer to them in her shop in London, she’d pulled it up and run her finger down the lists of productions and the rows of awards for all their hard work. They had loved their art, designing and creating costumes that captured both a director’s vision and an audience’s attention to the characters who moved in them.

Now that page contained a new entry, one it still hurt to read:

_Ben Kenobi died of heart failure in September 2019 at the age of 86 in his country estate in Surrey, where the couple had officially retired from the arts in 2013. Satine Kenobi, 84, succumbed to complications of a stroke in November of the same year._

No one ever really retires from the arts. The calls had still come nearly every day from the younger, fresher set, asking the pair to take a look at sketches, to give them advice on a fabric or a way to distress a costume without destroying it for earlier scenes. Gran’s workroom was full of material, dress maker’s dummies, Rey’s early attempts at hats, buttons, brocade, canvas, and silks.

It smelled only of dust and Gran’s gardenia perfume. There was no dampness or mildew. It was the most treasured and best weather-protected room in the entire house. She’d opened all the shutters earlier so light hazed through the swirling snow outside, creating shafts of grey-white brilliance that brought sequins and satins to life once more. For several minutes, Rey simply wandered, picking things up and putting them down. In her head, she was cursing Lady Keldrick, but she also ought to thank her. She wouldn’t have come to this room. Not yet. Now that she was there, the warmth of her grandfather’s laughter rang in the stillness while Gran’s clipped tones lectured him about finding his glasses and ruining his eyes and making a decent cup of tea and who knew what else.

She sat down in a velvet-backed old chair in front of their work bench, overwhelmed. A stand of her hats stood behind it, a testament to both her own artistry and how much she had grown in her craft over the years. She picked up a pink number with a floppy brim, dislodging a feather boa from a stack on the stable as she did so. It slid to the floor, landing next to a wooden box tucked out of sight under the bench. The box, scratched and splattered with paint, must’ve always been there, but Rey had never seen it before. She had always been more interested in what was going on atop the bench than below it.

Hoping for a distraction, she pulled it out, blew the dust off the top, and placed it carefully in an open space on the bench, where she turned the small black skeleton key in its lock.

An hour later, she had pictures spread all over the bench. There were color photos of her mum, of her, professional pictures from plays and promotional images from movie studios. One stack held about thirty images that were obviously taken behind the scenes over a number of years. They looked to be from the late 70s or early 80s, and in all of them, the same beautiful couple figured in one way or another.

The man, a striking and tall dark-haired type, seemed always to be looking at or sitting with the woman, also dark haired, though slight, with a button nose and deep expressive eyes. Some had Gran or Gramps in them as well. In one, Gramps was holding the younger woman up in his arms, her legs dangling round his pot belly. He held up a huge bottle of champagne in the other hand. On the back, Gran had written in her flowing script, “Ben and Leia celebrate her BAFTA.” Others were simply labeled with a place and year such as “Han, 1981, Greenwich.” One, worn at the edges as though carried in a wallet or billfold for years, showed the beautiful pair in a flat someplace, both chatting and smiling. Gramps had written on the back of this one in his all capital block printing: “THE SOLOS. OPHELIA AFTERPARTY. 20, DEC, 1987.”

Something about the photographs drew her in, made her want to know more about the couple with the somewhat familiar names. It would keep for another time, though. She did have work to do.

**

When she had arranged to go up to her grandparents’ family home in December, Rey hadn’t been sure if she’d stay for Christmas. She needed time off. Finn was always telling her to take time off. Something about needing time to process her grief. It was true, she’d handled the funeral and then thrown herself into work more than ever. She hadn’t sorted anything at their house but had simply engaged a property management company to handle the trimming and security and got back to London and work as soon as possible. It was too fresh, too difficult, to begin to crack the shell of her grief.

Gran and Gramps had been more than grandparents. They were the parents she’d never had, since she’d never known a father and her mum was more interested in drinking and keeping her latest boyfriend than in raising a daughter.

Now that she was back at the estate, she felt safe. Sad, too, in a way that couldn’t be explained in words, but felt poignantly in the wee hours of quiet dawn, yes, most certainly. But also, safe. Safe from the constant demands of her London clientele, the worry over the right materials, the latest trends, the constant exertion of creating bespoke pieces for every season and garden party, birthday, funeral, church service, and charity auction. Her mind, her creative well, her very soul was crying out for silence, and here, she felt it wrap around her, safe and comforting.

She was sketching some ideas out on a pad by her laptop while zooming in on different pieces of Lady Keldrick’s chosen dress when she remembered the photos. It had been three days, and she’d gone into the village earlier in the day, picking up a wreath and some new lights for the front door. Perhaps spending the holidays in Surrey was just what she needed after all.

With half of her mind was on the hat she was creating and half on what to make for dinner, she absent-mindedly googled the names she’d seen on the back of the photographs. As she began to read, her hand clenched so tightly she nearly broke her colored pencil. All her thoughts of supper, of Christmas decorating, were gone.

What she’d stumbled across was an obituary in the Daily Mail.

_26 December, 1987._

_Both London and Hollywood are reeling this morning from the news that Han and Leia Organa Solo were on Flight 394 to Los Angeles. As the passenger lists of the cursed flight begin to be published, it appears that the well-known couple had booked passage to spend the holidays in their Beverly Hills villa with their son, Benjamin, 5, who was being cared for by staff while his parents completed a critically acclaimed run in Ophelia over the winter._

_Air traffic messages now indicate that engine failure is to blame for the crash, which killed 280 souls when it crashed into the Atlantic two days ago._

_The Solos began their whirlwind romance as Leia Organa joined Solo on the set of their first film together, “Battle Star,” in 1976. Extras said the debonair leading man was immediately drawn to Organa, who at first rebuffed his advances. Before the end of the movie, however, Solo was said to win Organa over with pub fish and chips and a trip to the seaside, and the rest, as they say in the business, is history. Organa Solo gave birth to their only son, Benjamin, in 1982. The tyke holds dual citizenship, English for his mother, and American for his once-playboy father. It is expected that the child will be cared for by a distant great-uncle, out of the glare of the bright lights that made his mum and dad beloved to so many._

It went on to detail the professional careers of both Leia and Han, speaking of their chemistry whenever they worked together but also of their individual achievements. A BAFTA for Leia. Several Golden Globes and an Oscar nomination for Han. But this was madness. Heartbreaking. Horrible. And their son was named Ben. Surely that couldn’t be a coincidence? Rey thought of the photos, the loving inscriptions, Leia jumping for joy in the arms of her Gramps. All more than a decade before Rey herself had ever been born. Who was Ben Solo? And more importantly, where was he?

Surely, he would want the pictures. She couldn’t find them anywhere online, and why would she? They were taken with her grandparents, old and cherished memories that had never been shared with the public. Perhaps they would bring him some happiness, to see them young and in their prime in such casual settings? Rey determined to find out.

**

Three weeks later, on the day before Christmas, Rey found herself in a quaint coffee shop in the village, quietly picking at a tiny chip in her porcelain cup. She straightened her hat for perhaps the tenth time, waiting, self-conscious and flustered, for Ben Solo to walk through the door. A large manila envelope on the black and white checked table held the photographs she had thought she’d likely just mail.

His manager had nixed that though. Kylo–for that’s what he went by when he first went to Hollywood and the name had stuck–Kylo Ren, the American superstar, the actor who was likely to be nominated for an Oscar for his work in the family drama, “Divorce and Death in Alabama,” didn’t want the photos mailed. There might be a problem with the mail. They might be destroyed or damaged. He wouldn’t send a staff member or an assistant, for fear that the photos would be published or sold before he could see them. He was coming here, to Surrey, today, to retrieve them himself.

She knew of him only what she had read. Raised by his great-uncle, Luke Skywalker, he’d had a quiet upbringing in the Midwestern state of Indiana after moving away from his childhood home in California. The Kenobis, it turned out, had been intimate friends of the Solos, working with them on many projects before the latter’s deaths. Solo had inherited his parents’ love of the stage and had gone back to LA to try his hand after catching the acting bug through several high school plays. Not wanting to trade on his parents’ stardom, he’d changed his name to Kylo Ren, delivering pizza and parking cars while taking bit parts in tv shows and a few b-movies until his big break had finally come.

These days he was known as one of, if not the, greatest actor of his generation. He had a play starting in January in London, a story of two gay lovers in the 1870s, very different from his latest Hollywood fare. Rey had expected either to never receive an answer to the quick note she’d dashed off to his management or to be instructed of an address to which to mail the pictures.

And yet there she was. Waiting. For Ben.

He didn’t look like a Kylo, at least not to her. His shy smile, the way his plush lips revealed a set of slightly uneven upper teeth in more casual photos, made him seem both kind and unassuming. He was a workhorse, according to his colleagues. A consummate professional. A leading man unlike any in the business since…well, since his father.

The coffeehouse was playing “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” when the bell on the glass door tinkled.

Rey’s hand went to her hat, a simple fascinator, perched on the left side of her head and spilling little streams of navy ribbon over a half veil. He came in with a rush of wind blowing his shiny black hair all around his face. He wore it moppish and long, waving at the ends around the neck of his black walking coat. He was huge. Rey blinked, trying to take him in where he was framed in the doorway, but it was difficult to process. The whole thing seemed an odd fever dream.

He looked over, and having caught her eye, walked purposely across the wooden floor, after stopping momentarily to wipe the snow from his boots on the rug. “Are you Rey Kenobi?” he said in a deep, rich baritone.

“I…um. Yes. That’s me. I’m Rey.” Cursing herself for blundering, she stood and handed him the envelope. “Here’s your pictures. I only kept the ones with my grandparents. The rest are all there.”

He nodded, still standing, and she was drawn to his nose, too big for his face and a little reddened from the cold but somehow lovely anyway. “I’m sorry. I’m sure you’re quite busy and all…” she coughed. “Would you…would you like a cup of tea? Or a coffee? I’m just having some Darjeeling myself.”

Ben cocked his head, still studying her. He shrugged his massive shoulders, nodding. “Sure,” he said. “It’s horribly cold.”

“Bloody bitter,” Rey agreed, smiling in spite of her nerves.

He hung his coat on a hook nearby and returned, folding his long legs under the table with an odd grace for a man so large.

“Do you mind if I ask,” he said, immediately, American to the core and straight to the point, “why you contacted me about the pictures?”

It was Rey’s turn to shrug, and her veil bobbed as she did so. “I don’t know really. It just seemed like the right thing to do.”

When the host came by to take his order, he asked for an Irish coffee, smiling that too soft grin conspiratorially at Rey as he did so. “After all,” he said. “We might be here for a while. It’s cold outside.”

Rey silently blessed the frigid temperatures, wrapping her fingers around her cup. Just for a few minutes, it would be nice to not be alone.

Ben Solo, American superstar, greatest actor of his generation, grief stricken on the anniversary of his parent’s death, was looking at the English enigma in front of him and thinking the same thing. This woman was a puzzle he’d like to solve, and if he was honest, it didn’t hurt that she was beautiful in the way that so many English women are, with translucent skin that still held the freckles her auburn hair had likely given her.

This day was always difficult. He’d been five when his nanny and Uncle Luke had come to tell him that his mommy and daddy wouldn’t be coming home ever again. There was a haunted look to this Rey’s eyes, like maybe she could understand, or at least take his mind off his memories for a while.

He gradually became aware that she was staring at him, expectant and perhaps a bit embarrassed. “I’m sorry,” he said. “What did you say?”

“Oh, I just, uh,” her fingers smoothed around the rim of her teacup. “I just asked why you’d want to fly out here so close to Christmas. I’d have been happy to mail the photographs.”

Ben cocked his head to the side, his hair falling over his left eye. “Safer this way. And I didn’t have anything going on. Work shuts down for the holidays, and I never really celebrate.”

Rey colored, pink rising into her smooth cheeks. “Oh, goodness. I am sorry. Of course, you wouldn’t…I mean. I’m sorry. About all of it. It seems like your parents were really special people.”

Ben ignored this, as he often did when people stumbled over how to give condolences for a faraway tragedy. “I understand your grandparents were as well.”

He watched her swallow, her slim throat constricting momentarily with some strong emotion. She blinked. “They were.”

Ben brought his cup to his lips, swallowing the hot liquid and feeling it burn down his throat, blurring his hidden grief. He opened his eyes to find Rey looking at her lap, one hand outstretched past her teacup, clenched solidly in a fist.

On impulse, he reached out, covering her hand with his own warm fingers. “Well,” he said, voice low and throaty. “We have them in common then, don’t we?”

**

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to the contest creators and to the artists for the boards. This has been such fun to write and now I want to keep fiddling with it. Let me know if you might be interested in more of their story - although it would likely become NSFW if I continued it. Happy holidays to all! Find me on FB as Tandy McCray and on twitter @TGBMcCray.


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